Some People will always be in
Isolation (Shabbos 24)
And the Rebbe of Nemirov, every Friday morning early at Sliches-time,
disappeared, melted into thin air! He was not to be found anywhere, either in
the synagogue or in the two houses-of-study, or worshipping in some Minyan, and
most certainly not at home. His door stood open, people went in and out as they
pleased—no one ever stole anything from the Rebbe—but there was not a soul in
the house. Where can the Rebbe be? Where should he be, if not in heaven? Is it likely a Rebbe should have no affairs
on hand with the Solemn Days so near? Jews
(no evil eye!) need a livelihood, peace, health, successful match-makings, they
wish to be good and pious and their sins are great, and Satan with his thousand
eyes spies out the world from one end to the other, and he sees, and accuses,
and tells tales—and who shall help if not the Rebbe? So thought the people.
Once, however, there came a Litvak—and he laughed! You know the Litvak
Jews—they rather despise books of devotion, but stuff themselves with the
Talmud and the codes. Well, the Litvak points out a special bit of the Gemoreh—and
hopes it is plain enough: even Moses our Teacher could not ascend into heaven,
but remained suspended thirty inches below it—and who, I ask you, is going to
argue with a Litvak? What becomes of the Rebbe?
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” says he, shrugging his shoulders, and
all the while (what it is to be a Litvak!) determined to find out.
The very same evening, soon after prayers, the Litvak steals into the
Rebbe’s room, lays himself down under the Rebbe’s bed, and lies low. He intends to stay there all night to find
out where the Rebbe goes, and what he does at Sliches-time. Another in his
place would have dozed and slept the time away. Not so a Litvak—he learned a
whole treatise of the Talmud by heart!
Day has not broken when he hears the call to prayer. The Rebbe has been
awake some time. The Litvak has heard him sighing and groaning for a whole
hour. Whoever has heard the groaning of the Nemirover Rebbe knows what sorrow
for All-Israel, what distress of mind, found voice in every groan. The soul
that heard was dissolved in grief. But the heart of a Litvak is of cast-iron.
The Litvak hears and lies still. The Rebbe lies still, too—the Rebbe, long life
to him, upon the bed and the Litvak under the bed!
After that the Litvak hears the beds in the house squeak—the people jump
out of them—a Jewish word is spoken now and again—water is poured on the
fingers—a door is opened here and there. Then the people leave the house, once
more it is quiet and dark, only a very little moonlight comes in through the
shutter. He confessed afterwards, did
the Litvak, that when he found himself alone with the Rebbe terror took hold of
him. He grew cold all over, and the roots of his ear-locks pricked his temples
like needles. An excellent joke, to be left alone with the Rebbe at
Sliches-time before dawn! But a Litvak
is dogged. He quivers and quakes like a fish—but he does not budge.
At last the Rebbe, long life to him, rises in his turn. First he does what beseems a Jew. Then he
goes to the wardrobe and takes out a packet—which proves to be the dress of a
peasant: linen trousers, high boots, a pelisse, a wide felt hat, and a long and
broad leather belt studded with brass nails. The Rebbe puts them on. Out of the pockets of the pelisse dangles the
end of a thick cord, a peasant’s cord. On
his way out the Rebbe steps aside into the kitchen, stoops, takes a hatchet
from under a bed, puts it into his belt, and leaves the house. The Litvak
trembles, but he persists.
A fearful, Solemn-Day hush broods over the dark streets, broken not
unfrequently by a cry of supplication from some little Minyan, or the moan of
some sick person behind a window. The Rebbe keeps to the street side, and walks
in the shadow of the houses. He glides from one to the other, the Litvak after
him. And the Litvak hears the sound of his own heart-beats mingle with the
heavy footfall of the Rebbe; but he follows on, and together they emerge from
the town.
Behind the town stands a little wood. The Rebbe, long life to him, enters
it. He walks on thirty or forty paces, and then he stops beside a small tree.
And the Litvak, with amaze, sees the Rebbe take his hatchet and strike the
tree. He sees the Rebbe strike blow after blow, he hears the tree creak and
snap. And the little tree falls, and the Rebbe splits it up into logs, and the
logs into splinters. Then he makes a bundle, binds it round with the cord,
throws it on his shoulder, replaces the hatchet in his belt, leaves the wood,
and goes back into the town.
In one of the back streets he stops beside a poor, tumbledown little
house, and taps at the window.
“Who is there?” cries a frightened voice within. The Litvak knows it to
be the voice of a Jewess, a sick Jewess.
“I,” answers the Rebbe in the peasant tongue.
“Who is I?” inquires the voice further. And the Rebbe answers again in
the Little-Russian speech:
“Vassil.”
“Which Vassil? and what do you want, Vassil?”
“I have wood to sell,” says the sham peasant, “very cheap, for next to
nothing.”
And without further ado he goes in. The Litvak steals in behind him, and
sees, in the gray light of dawn, a poor room with poor, broken furniture.
In the bed lies a sick Jewess huddled up in rags, who says bitterly: “Wood
to sell—and where am I, a poor widow, to get the money from to buy it?”
“I will give you a six-groschen worth on credit.”
“And how am I ever to repay you?” groans the poor woman.
“Foolish creature!” the Rebbe upbraids her. “See here: you are a poor
sick Jewess, and I am willing to trust you with the little bundle of wood; I
believe that in time you will repay me. And you, you have such a great and
mighty God, and you do not trust Him! not even to the amount of a miserable
six-groschen for a little bundle of wood!”
“And who is to light the stove?” groans the widow. “Do I look like
getting up to do it? and my son away at work!”
“I will also light the stove for you,” said the Rebbe.
And the Rebbe, while he laid the wood in the stove, repeated groaning the
first part of Sliches. Then, when the stove was alight, and the wood crackled
cheerily, he repeated, more gaily, the second part of Sliches. He repeated the third part when the fire had
burnt itself out, and he shut the stove doors….
The Litvak who saw all this remained with the Rebbe, as one of his
followers. And later, when anyone told
how the Rebbe early every morning at Sliches-time raised himself and flew up
into heaven, the Litvak, instead of laughing, added quietly: “If not higher.”
(I.L. Peretz)
דְּאָמַר רָבָא: יוֹם
טוֹב שֶׁחָל לִהְיוֹת בְּשַׁבָּת, שְׁלִיחַ צִיבּוּר הַיּוֹרֵד לִפְנֵי הַתֵּיבָה
עַרְבִית אֵינוֹ צָרִיךְ לְהַזְכִּיר שֶׁל יוֹם טוֹב, שֶׁאִילְמָלֵא שַׁבָּת אֵין
שְׁלִיחַ צִבּוּר יוֹרֵד עַרְבִית בְּיוֹם טוֹב. הָכִי הַשְׁתָּא?! הָתָם בְּדִין
הוּא דַּאֲפִילּוּ בְּשַׁבָּת נָמֵי לָא צְרִיךְ, וְרַבָּנַן הוּא דְּתַקִּינוּ
מִשּׁוּם סַכָּנָה
וחשו שיש שאין ממהרין לבא
ושוהין לאחר תפלה לכך האריכו תפלת הצבור
Rava said: On a Yom Tov that occurs on Shabbat, the chazan who descends to
lead services in the evening need not mention the festival. For if it were not also Shabbat, the chazan
would not lead services on a festival.
Actually, strictly speaking, even on Shabbat, the prayer leader need not
repeat the prayer. It was the Sages who instituted repetition of the prayer due
to concern for danger.
Rashi: The Sages were concerned about those who did not rush to shul on
time and would linger until after the service.
Therefore, they extended the service of the congregation.
On Friday night, we have a special bracha that the chazan recites after the
silent Amidah. It is a mini-repetition
of the Amidah, called ‘Bracha me’ein Sheva.’
Rava explains why it was instituted: We are worried about people coming
late to shul. Back in the day, before
the Kabbalat Shabbat service was introduced, Friday night prayers were quite
short. If someone came a little late,
the service would be almost over. They
would then be left there by themselves to finish davening. They would have to walk home alone, which
could be dangerous. In order to make
sure nobody would have to walk in the dark by themselves, the Sages inserted an
extra prayer.
Think about that. The whole
congregation must now daven longer because of one or two dawdlers who couldn’t
get themselves to shul on time! Despite
their negligence, the community puts its collective comfort aside to ensure
that nobody is placed into any situation of danger. If that’s the care we demonstrate towards
those who act irresponsibly, it goes without saying how concerned we must be
for those who are alone, through no fault of their own.
The Yerushalmi teaches that the Tribe of Dan would travel as the final
tribe in the Israelite formation in the wilderness, as the “gatherer of all the
camps” (Num. 10:25). If anyone had
dropped anything, Dan would collect the missing items and return them to their
owners. The Rosh explains that these
weren’t only objects that were dropped.
Dan would be there to escort all the stragglers, who had fallen
behind. Abarbanel adds that this
included even the eirev rav – the Egyptians who had accompanied the
Israelites into the wilderness (and were often a thorn in their side). We have a duty to care for all in need.
We currently find ourselves wandering through the wilderness. You might not have it so bad. You work from home. Your job is safe. You’re able to order what you need at the
click of a button. You’re healthy. It’s really not the end of the world.
But it’s not about you. We are all only
as strong as our weakest link. Many
people are suffering terribly.
Isolation, especially when you’re all by yourself, can be
soul-destroying. We need to make sure we
are doing whatever we can for those who might be falling behind. We all know people who have nobody to turn to
for assistance. Like the Rebbe of
Nemirov, we need to ensure we’re looking out for opportunities to reach to the
heavens, ‘if not higher.’ All the
selichos in the world are meaningless if we are not there to take care of those
who are alone.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (Germany C19) is reported to have declared, ‘If
I had the power, I would provisionally close all synagogues for a hundred
years. Do not tremble at the thought of it, Jewish heart. What would happen?
Jews and Jewesses without synagogues, desiring to remain such, would be forced
to concentrate on a Jewish life and a Jewish home.’
While Rav Hirsch’s focus may have been on sustaining Jewish home life, the
closing of the synagogues has also brought us all to a greater awareness of the
plight of those who might not enjoy many of the benefits of communal life. Some people never have bar and bat mitzvahs,
britot, and weddings, to celebrate.
Living alone with no extended family, years can go by, while they suffer
in silence, passing under the radar of Jewish communal life.
The current crisis has opened our eyes to those who have been suffering for
all these years. We’re now all doing our
best to seek the welfare of every member of our communities and make sure they
have their regular shopping provisions, Pesach needs, and daily check-ins. Undoubtedly, many of these unfortunate
individuals are uttering silent blessings that finally someone has acknowledged
their existence and taken time to show them the love and care they need.
The challenge we have as individuals and communities is to keep our eyes
open wide even once the crisis is over, please God very soon. Once the air has cleared, will we assume that
life is wonderful for all, or will we continue to think about these isolated
individuals?
You might not be able to make it to shul right now. But you can soar to the heavens, if not
higher. May you dedicate your life to
seeking opportunities to helping those in isolation right now, as well as after
the crisis has ended for most of us!
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